Harvest Monday - 14 July 2025

 Hello again from Eight Gate Farm. It was not a week of large harvests, but I did get some new crops as well as continuing harvests.

I took the first set of garlic this week. This is "Vietnamese Purple-Striped."

Vietnamese Purple-Striped Garlic

The bulbs are much smaller than what I usually grow. This is partially intentional. In past years I only selected the largest cloves to plant, to make the largest bulbs. Part of this is for bragging rights. But we've discovered that large cloves are somewhat hard to use in the kitchen--more than we need for a certain dish. So last fall I decided to plant some small cloves. It worked, I guess. These bulbs are basically marble-sized. Oops! I think this year I'll try to source cloves that aren't huge, but still of size.

I took the first fully-ripe cayenne pepper. As with the solitary eggplant, this is an outlier. All the rest are far from turning red.

Red Ember hybrid cayenne

I also cut the first zucchini. This is "Sophy," a hybrid Cocozelle-type. It is Johnny's new offering, replacing Pantheon which I've grown for years and liked. I never know why varieties are discontinued. Regardless, it does have the nice nutty taste that I like.

Sophy (F1)

I also took the first cuttings from the lettuce mix I planted back in spring.

'Summer Blend' lettuce mix

For continuing harvests, I took the last, smallest Red Iceberg lettuce head. Sad to see this crop go.

Red Iceberg

Peas are slowing down, which is understandable considering how far into summer we are. Although, we may get a last final flush. The "Sweet Horizon" snow peas seem to be outperforming the "Super Sugar Snaps."

Super Sugar Snap peas and Sweet Horizon snow peas

That's all for this week. Thanks for reading, and thanks as always to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for continuing Harvest Monday.